Celebrating Sister’s Day
The first Sunday in August is Sister’s Day, and I, for one, will be celebrating it. I know the secret marketing gurus behind the scenes have created this “holiday” of sorts in a probable effort to generate income for the card industry, but if you have a sister, you probably would agree she’s worth all the fuss a muss!
There are only two years that separate me and my sister, and as a result, I cannot fathom my life without her. When she was little, well … she perplexed me. There’s a story I am told of where I somehow dragged her swaddled and all into a closet in an effort to regain my status as an only child. She came into my life unplanned, and I suppose if they’d have asked me, then I’d have said “no thanks!”
The early childhood years were tough with our mother having been killed, and I remember her mostly during that time as the brave one. She leaned into our mother’s half-closed casket and asked, “Where’s her feet?” I gasped at her ability to even speak in that moment when I could barely stand to see our mother in that box.
She and I, it seems, have always been two steps behind one another. As teenagers, she was clearly the smarter one in school; she always made the best grades and never even had to study. I secretly envied her. She later admitted she envied me; through her eyes, I had all the friends and looks and care-freeness that she could not socially find. Oh, well. God gives us different talents.
In middle school, Elizabeth was a force to be reckoned with as she defied the norm and wanted to play flag football with of all creatures – boys! I never had any use for sports especially ones that involved balls and the potential to break a fingernail!
She followed me through high school like a puppy dog with all of my friends being her friends, and when I announced at 17 that I was leaving, she was the most angry that I had ever seen her. As I walked down the aisle at St. Mary’s to receive my diploma from high school, she stood up and walked into my path stopping me from the procession. She stopped me – while I was trying to graduate!!!!*#! – to ask me with a sheepish grin on her face if I thought it would be okay for her to come to school there next year! Together, we went to St. Mary’s for her last two years of high school and for my first two years of college, and watched, as we always have, over each other. When she graduated from high school as valedictorian, I walked behind her a few hours later with honors. Marriages and children have now separated me from North Carolina and with the death of our father, a displaced feeling that the only home we each have now is the one we have created separately. Who said, “You can never go home?” We are living proof that you absolutely cannot. But, we try, and almost every day at some point, we text, Skype or call. My life would not be as rich without her in it, and I think she knows that.
As I write this, I have been away far too long from her. Thanksgiving made it a year since I had seen her beautiful face. I am traveling to North Carolina by the time you read this to celebrate the 80th birthday of my sweet father-in-law in June. Elizabeth and I will get a chance to spend the night together. After all of the children are fed, bathed and prayed for, we will settle in for a long night of catching up and giggling just like when we were little! Although our lives are as different as night is to day, we are always there for each other. Sisterhood is something quite special!
